The Sealwoman's Gift

by Sally Magnusson

  Long before he reaches the base of the city he can see the great galleon docked at the end of the mole. No doubt the usual crowd will be rushing to gape and celebrate: nobody could have missed those cannons. It’s good for the city, a big fresh cargo like this. Puts a spring in everyone’s step.

  He swings left towards the slave-market, which is beginning to fill with buyers, and arranges himself languorously on a stone bench shiny with wear. This is his usual place. The pillared arcade is cool and commands a decent view of the sales. It is also well placed for slipping up the hill when he has had enough. You never do get quite used to the screaming of the mothers.

  Patting out the dust from the hem of his cream-white burnous, he picks idly at a wisp of thread that has worked itself free. Alimah was unusually insistent this morning when she noticed the thread.

  ‘Make sure you get someone who can sew,’ she said, eyeing him from between half-closed lids. ‘Never mind breasts like pomegranates this time, if you please. A skilled hand will do.’

  Cilleby sits back to wait.

  10

  The captives stumble up from the hold in a daze, shaken by the blast of celebratory cannon-fire and choking with gunpowder fumes. For several minutes the sky remains dimmed with smoke. But as they watch, the saltpetre haze begins to disperse and the most astonishing view reveals itself. A white city. A completely white city. In the shards of returning radiance the sight stuns Ásta as nothing else since she rode out with her father one cornflower day in Iceland and saw in the west, the beauty of it making her chest hurt, the Snaefells glacier glittering in the sunshine.

  Here is another angel-bright cone of ice. It lies broad and flat along the seafront and rises, narrowing sharply, to a citadel at the tip. It is enclosed by a gated wall, within which a dense jumble of chalky buildings clings to the mountainside. The roofs are flat – she notices this from the ship with amazement – and between them rise strangely sculpted domes, rounded to a point. From the sea the effect is of a white gemstone in a frame of emerald hills.

  A festive reception appears to be awaiting them. As they stagger along the mole that forms a long causeway down one side of the harbour, a mass of people surges forward to meet them. They are in every kind of attire, from bright robes to sackcloth, with some wearing next to nothing at all. One or two are wrapped from nose to toe in a capacious cloth that Ólafur, longing to touch it, thinks might be of the same linen as the pirates’ shirts. Everyone is pushing to get a better look at the arrivals. Ásta has peered just as curiously herself at the cargo offloaded from the first spring ship into Heimaey, although salt and nails and an occasional length of Norwegian wood for Jón Oddsson hardly stand comparison to a galleon-load of bewildered slaves.

  From the harbour the Icelanders are paraded in groups, men and women separately, through a maze of streets so narrow they quickly lose sight of the sky. Vendors shout their wares from hollows in blank white walls and animal drivers yell at small, oddly shaped horses with mangy coats and ears so large they look set for flight.

  ‘Donkeys,’ Ólafur will tell Ásta in the pasha’s prison. ‘And that other beast, the huge one with the lips like a bull, that was a camel, I believe.’ Not that either of them will care by then.

  After their bare, solemn island and a subdued month in the ship’s hold, the babble of the streets makes their heads ache. At one point an unearthly music wails out above them and they hear a man’s voice holding first one note then another, high and long. Margrét pokes Ásta in the back to hiss that someone must be having a tooth pulled.

  The slave-market is a wide square full of men. Away from the shade of the high buildings, the broiling sun burns their cheeks and makes everyone feel dizzy; the cobblestones roast their bare feet. Ásta pulls the pirate shirt further over the baby’s head and tries to shade Marta, who is clinging to her leg, within the filthy folds of her dress. Anna Jasparsdóttir begins to sway and Margrét offers her a sharp shoulder to lean on. The girl even swoons prettily, Ásta thinks distractedly.

  She looks over to where Ólafur and Egill have been herded with the other men. They are being arranged in a circle. Egill looks very small between Ólafur and the burly Einar Loftsson. From above the square comes a blast of trumpets. A dignitary of some kind, accompanied by a retinue of armed guards, is making his way down the hill. Ásta glimpses a flash of green turban and a white feather bobbing nearer.

  Cilleby watches the pasha making his way across the square with the usual pomp and trumpetry to size up the first batch of male captives. They look as half dead as they always do when they have just stepped off a ship. Hot, too. Every one of them is as pale-skinned as that boor Fleming over there, who never ceases complaining about the heat.

  The pasha is strolling from man to man, two armed janissaries with unsheathed blades stepping around the circle with him. He peers into dull eyes, feels hands and arms and prises open several mouths. Occasionally he pats a buttock or cups a horrified groin.

  Cilleby is close enough to make out the fleshy nose, the small eyes screwed so tight in the sun they are hardly there. Constantinople sends the regency all kinds of pashas, but this one particularly revolts him. There is a flutter of red silk as the Ottoman governor of Algiers, exercising his historical right to choose for himself an eighth of every group of new slaves, pads from one man to another, considering his options. Cilleby feels faintly sick.

  The white feather stops, moves on, stops again. Ásta, peering over from the female group, begins to understand that the fleshy dignitary is making a choice. The feather hovers a moment beside the shaggy blond head of Margrét’s son Jón, who stands nearly as high as its tip. Then it glides on and Margrét clutches Ásta with relief. Neither of them knows who the man is or what this choosing means, but every watching mother’s instinct is shrieking. The feather passes over a scowling Einar and reaches Egill. He looks so small that Ásta has almost convinced herself that the man will not notice him at all. Then the feather halts and a hand reaches out to ruffle Egill’s red hair.

  When Ásta thinks back on this day – waking to latticed shadow on a white wall, too muddled with sleep to fend off the memory – she will see again that scarlet sleeve, rising first to toy with her boy’s hair and then in peremptory summons. She will listen for the click of bejewelled fingers, thinking she really did hear the sound they made, like the soft snap of a puffin’s neck. She will see a baggy-trousered soldier jerk Egill forward. She will stop breathing. She will stop breathing all over again, lying there in the harem, because that is what happened: she stopped breathing. She will watch as Ólafur makes to follow and is halted by a curved sword to his throat. She will hear him calling in Icelandic, ‘Don’t, in God’s name, forget your faith, my son.’ She will hear Egill answer in a high, wobbly voice, ‘I won’t, Pabbi,’ and feel her throat close, just as it did then. And the sweat will pour from her and she will struggle all over again to make a shout when there is no breath to give it voice. She’ll will Egill – will him again with the titanic force of the love in her – to turn and look across to where the women captives are. And she will remember how he did turn, and the fright on his face. She will remember his eyes finding hers, the same eyes he turned on her when she struck him for smashing the eggs. She won’t be able to look at them for long, though – not afterwards – because she can’t bear the silent pleading in them; she cannot bear it. Then she will make herself watch the soldier yanking him away. And she will remember how, when the scream left her throat at last, she saw his step falter. Sometimes she will cry out again, and Marta, lying at her side, will pat her hand.

  Captain Fleming has spotted his man. He raises a large sandalled foot to the stone bench and leans across his knee until he is level with the Moor’s hooded face. Cilleby receives a waft of sardines and inches away.

  ‘I’ve got a proposition for you.’

  The renewed blare of trumpets interrupts the captain’s train of thought. He glances over at the ostrich feather drifting back up the hill towards the
white palace at the head of an enlarged retinue. ‘That’s the pasha made his choices, poor buggers. About time. I can get on with selling the rest now.’

  ‘Make this quick, though, Fleming.’ They are speaking in the lingua franca of the Ottoman ports that proves so useful for every sort of commerce. ‘You’re blocking my view.’

  The remaining captives are being hustled into groups of ten. Buyers stroll among them, pointing and stroking their chins. A leather-faced man with twig legs and a grubby tunic has begun plucking the men forward one by one, whacking their flanks with his staff to make them trot in a circle. Ólafur’s mouth is wrenched open to have his teeth inspected. Jón Jónsson, feeling a rough hand measure his back, tries to hunch his shoulders.

  ‘Easy to catch as spiders, these Icelanders,’ confides the captain. ‘That’s why it’s such a big market today. We’ll have to see how they perform in the heat, but most of the men seem strong enough. Spent their lives on ropes and pulling in nets, far as I can gather.’

  ‘And your proposition, Captain?’ The women are being paraded now. Will this buffoon get to the point?

  ‘Right. Just wanted to give you the general picture. By the way, some of the women are worth a good price, too.’ An unbidden image offers itself of Ásta’s eyes raking his. ‘They seem to do a lot of the work back home, outdoors and in, so you’ll get plenty of wear out of them. They’ll think they’ve landed in heaven here.’

  Cilleby shifts impatiently.

  ‘Anyway, you’ll make your own mind up as usual. But today I am also pleased to offer a special deal.’

  The women are being examined now. The captain’s brokers are jabbing at them and everyone is shouting at once. Numbly Ásta registers Fleming himself leaning over a seated figure in a pale cloak with a hood. Next to her Anna has a gross hand put up her skirt to feel if she has been with a man. Spared by the child in her arms, Ásta’s overflowing breasts are prodded instead. Margrét, lost in her own silent agony at seeing her handsome Jón led away by a thug with thick arms, bites the finger that tries to test her teeth and receives a slap so hard that one of them shakes loose. She spits it out on the cobbles (which in another life she might have admired for their spotless shine) with furious contempt.

  Resisting the temptation to detach a hank of peeling skin from the captain’s nose, Cilleby tells him to hurry up or he knows where he can put his deal, special or not.

  ‘Right then. Icelandic family. Eldest boy’s gone to the pasha now, but that leaves one male (ageing but fit), one female worker (thirty years, maybe more, nice shape for her age and smart, I’d say).’ He swallows, rolls his tongue between his lips. ‘One female child (two or three years), one healthy infant, male, born on board.’

  Cilleby frowns. ‘I don’t buy families, Fleming – you know that. Nobody does. Too much trouble. And what am I supposed to do with an old man?’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Cilleby. You’ve got so many houses, you could put them in one each and they would never see each other from one year’s end to the next. But that’s not the point. The old man is a priest in their church. No money, but educated. I put some effort into engaging him on the ship, let me tell you. His people seem to respect him.’

  ‘I believe you mentioned a point, Captain?’ Cilleby strains past him to see over to the women. Alimah will sulk if he doesn’t get this right. ‘And since you are taking so long about it, I’d be grateful if you could move aside and let me attend to the reason I came – which is to buy, if I may enumerate, a sewing woman, a few labourers so that I can trade up some of my skilled ones, and perhaps some men to replenish the galley if I see any muscle. Which I’m not likely to do with your backside in the way.’

  The captain flushes. ‘The point, Cilleby, if you’ll do me the honour of listening one minute longer, is that I’ve got a couple of hundred of these Icelanders here, and there will be as many again sold by others, but they’re dirt-poor. Not a wealthy relative back home among them, according to this priest.’

  ‘You’d have been better sticking to Venice then,’ Cilleby growls, pulling irritably at the gold thread. ‘Plenty of rich families there.’

  ‘But the point is they’re a colony of Denmark, and the Danish king could be a different ransom proposition if we can only make contact. Which the city council has not yet been able to do, if I may remind you, in regard to the subjects of his we’ve already taken at sea. Look, Cilleby, you’ll get all the labour you want from this consignment, but I don’t need to tell you the business works best if countries pay to get their people back.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m offering a way of getting directly to Christian of Denmark. You know how long that damned council of yours has been looking for a diplomatic route to Copenhagen. So, send the priest to Denmark to appeal to the king to ransom his family – that’s my proposition.’

  The captain folds his arms. That’s got the Moor thinking.

  ‘It should also force the old rogue’s attention on to the rest of them. Four hundred subjects is a lot to lose at once. There’s a tidy ransom to play for here.’

  ‘And the price?’

  ‘High, obviously. But think of what you’ll get back. I tell you, Cilleby, this city needs a way through to Denmark, and that priest is the man to do it. Believe me, he can talk. Christian will hand over the Danish mint just to close his mouth.’

  ‘And what’s to stop him running off and never going near Copenhagen?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the beauty of it. He’s fond of his family – that’s what gave me the idea. I’ve watched this fellow very carefully. He’s not the sort to set up home with a brothel owner on the way through Livorno.’

  The captain, who enjoys a similar arrangement in Marseilles, leans in so close that Cilleby is awash in sardine. ‘And in the meantime you’ve got a woman for work and whatever else takes your fancy. And of course the children will be worth their weight in silver in the fullness of time.’

  Cilleby eyes him with distaste. ‘All right, I’ll take the family. It’s worth a try. But, Fleming’ – he glances over to where the women are being crudely inspected – ‘make sure you check her fingers. I need a woman who can sew.’

  11

  The state prison is entered through a convivial courtyard full of men eating and drinking at wooden tables in the shade, laughing loudly or staring gloomily into a diminishing flagon. The air is laden with the aroma of frying meat. Inside there is less cheer. As Ásta and Ólafur are being led to their cell, the state-owned slaves are returning to their hammocks from the quarries or construction sites where they spend their days. The dank passageways resound to the dismal clang of chain on stone.

  The couple are surprised to be still together, since every one of their compatriots was taken from the slave-market alone, with mothers allowed to keep only their youngest children. But Ólafur has been warned that they are to go to different houses tomorrow. The Norwegian guard says their purchaser is a private citizen, and assures them that a private owner of any cast is a better fate than to be bought for municipal labouring like the fettered wretches who live here. Ólafur is glad to have found a blessing for which he can make a genuine attempt to be grateful. Ásta listens to the faceless men clattering their desolation through the prison and thinks about the many ways in which people can be made to suffer.

  With Marta and Jón in their arms, they sit against the cell’s wet wall and talk of Egill and where he might be lying tonight and what use the pasha could have of him, being so small and slight. Ólafur says there is bound to be a lot to administer in a land with so many captives and ships bringing more all the time. ‘Egill reads well, remember, and you can see his intelligence at a glance.’

  Ásta sees the pooled tears and turns away.

  Ólafur had hoped Egill would become a priest. In fact, the matter was settled. He would go to study at Skálholt and perhaps spend some time assisting afterwards in the church at Torfastadir, as Ólafur had done himself.

  ‘He wou
ld have liked Torfastadir,’ he says.

  ‘If he could have put up with Helga tormenting him,’ she says.

  And each wishes the other would stop torturing them both.

  ‘You would like Torfastadir too,’ Ólafur tries next. ‘The church is on a hill and you can look over the heath to the broad mountain of Vördufell. Shut your eyes, Ásta. Let’s forget where we are and I’ll take you there.’

  Ólafur has always liked to take her places. ‘Come with me, my dear,’ he used to say, eyeing the mangled knitting. ‘Tonight we’ll visit a place where the winds blow warm and orange trees bloom in winter.’ And she would listen, rapt, while the real wind beat on the door.

  He takes her hand. ‘See, it’s springtime and we’re standing on the hill, you and I. Are you with me? Over there is Hekla, our lovely volcano, and she’s dusted in snow because it’s still just April. Do you see her? Below us we can spy the Hvítá river winding across the plain and down to the sea. And across that sea are the islands.’

  Ásta closes her eyes. Please stop. Please go on.

  ‘If we listen we can hear Helga and Egill arguing in the drowsy meadow. About nothing, of course. Helga will be insisting she’s right and tossing her hair, and Egill will madden her by letting it be understood that he knows better but doesn’t care to explain why.’

  Ólafur, spare me this.

  ‘Imagine just for the moment,’ he flounders on, ‘that …’ But in the tremble of his voice is so much of their pain expressed and not expressed that Ásta can bear it no longer. She cries, ‘Stop, Ólafur. Telling stories won’t help this time,’ so sharp that the baby stirs. And he falls silent, bending to hide his face in Marta’s knotted curls. They cannot comfort each other.